From Darkness to Awakening

My battle with addiction started young. By 13, I had already had my stomach pumped from an overdose, marking the beginning of a chaotic spiral into alcohol, substance abuse, and a constant search for escape. Throughout my twenties, I drifted without direction, chasing pleasure in all the wrong places. Nothing filled the void, and with each attempt to outrun my pain, I sank deeper into depression and anxiety.

Then in 2020, my world shattered when my older brother, healthy and full of life, was suddenly diagnosed with cancer. Just a few months later, he was gone. His death sent me into the darkest place I had ever known. Grief consumed me, and I drowned it in alcohol, drinking day and night just to numb the pain. I reached a point where I genuinely couldn’t see a way forward.

But in that moment of absolute despair, I had a choice: to let it consume me or to find a way out. I didn’t know where healing would take me, I just knew I couldn’t stay where I was.

Breaking Free From Illusions

Recovery didn’t happen overnight. At first, mindfulness and meditation felt impossible. My mind was loud, relentless. I overcomplicated everything, trying to “do” meditation instead of simply being. But over time, I began to see that mindfulness wasn’t something I had to “do” at all - it was about shifting into being. It was about disentangling my awareness from the mind, stepping back as the observer rather than being consumed by thoughts. The more I saw this, the more I realised that freedom wasn’t about controlling or silencing the mind, it was about no longer being identified with it.

The Non-dual understanding and plant medicines, particularly psilocybin and Ayahuasca, played a pivotal role in this process. These powerful experiences helped me uncover deep-seated trauma, bringing to light what I had buried. They also revealed something far more profound: I was not my thoughts, my past, or even my identity, I was the awareness that witnessed all of it.

Through years of seeking - exploring various spiritual traditions, paths, and practices, as well as confronting the illusions of my own mind and ego - I kept encountering the same truth. No matter the approach, teaching, or tradition, at the very heart of them all, it always led back to the same realisation: we are not a mind and body that experiences awareness; we are awareness itself, experiencing a mind and body. Everything we believe ourselves to be is just a story appearing within consciousness, and that consciousness is the same One aware being shining through us all, only bodies, minds, and egos separate us.

Non-dual wisdom and direct experience helped me see this clearly, not as a concept to believe in, but as something undeniable in my own lived reality. But like many others, before this realisation, I fell into a lot of spiritual traps along the way - mistaking insights for transformation, getting lost in concepts, illusions and believing I had “arrived” when I was just wearing another spiritual identity. The cycle of seeking can be just as relentless in spirituality as it is in addiction.

What finally brought lasting clarity wasn’t just one path or practice, it was the combination of a few. Mindfulness, self-inquiry, non-dual wisdom, microdosing, and plant medicine journeys are all individually powerful modalities, but together, they are truly unparalleled. Each one plays a unique role, but when used in harmony, they create a path to deep self-awareness, healing, peace, happiness and ultimately, the realisation of our true nature.

The more I saw through these illusions, the clearer it became: True awakening isn’t about collecting experiences, becoming something, or arriving anywhere. It’s about letting go of everything that obscures what we already are at our essence.

This is why The Essence of Being Programme exists. Because so many people, whether through meditation, plant medicines, or spiritual teachings, wake up to glimpses of something profound but then get stuck in seeking, illusion, confusion, or disconnection. Nik and I have built this programme to help people move beyond temporary insights and into lasting, embodied transformation.

Living as Awareness

My life today is no longer about escaping, it’s about being deeply present. In the simplicity of life, in the rawness of human experience, in the connections I share with others. Some of the things that bring me joy now are the simplest: learning piano, playing my Native American flutes, diving into philosophy and non-duality, reading something that shifts my perspective, taking a microdose and walking through nature, deep conversations with my partner, cooking nourishing meals, or just sitting in stillness with my cats, witnessing what is. I also love guiding meditations online and in person.

Microdosing has been a powerful tool along the way, helping me develop deeper self-awareness, emotional balance, and a greater capacity to sit with what is. It gave me space from my thoughts, allowing me to observe the mind rather than be consumed by it. Now, I guide and coach others in using microdosing in the same way - not as an escape or a shortcut, but as a tool for deepening self-awareness and integrating presence into everyday life.

Facilitating plant medicine ceremonies has also been one of the greatest teachers of my life. Holding space for others in these profound, often challenging experiences has taught me more about surrender, presence, and deep healing than I ever could have imagined. I’ve seen how these medicines can liberate, but also how they can mislead, how people can become dependent on them or get lost in the illusions of the mind rather than integrating their lessons. This is why my focus is not just on the experience itself, but on how to embody and integrate true awareness into daily life.